artiFacts

Audio & Visual

In the 1970s and 1980s, multinational corporations bought and merged many movie studios, ending the period of artistic experimentation in Hollywood. The industry has returned to financial success and global dominance through the development ofblockbuster franchises, large-scale marketing campaigns, and content aimed at children. It also has placed increasing emphasis on spectacular special Read more

By the 1960s, Hollywood was in decline, unable to keep up with the radical political and cultural developments transforming American society. European films, however, fueled by government funding of film production, achieved unprecedented levels of critical acclaim and box-office success. The sophistication and creativity of these films led to Read more

World War II left the European film industry in ruins, as only Italy’s production facilities avoided devastation. The war also affected American filmmakers and audiences, leading to the production of dark, morally ambiguous and socially critical films in the film noirstyle. As a result of the House Un-American Activities Committee(HUAC) hearings, Read more

The transition from silent to sound films caused great upheaval in the film industry, requiring costly renovation of production facilities and movie theaters, ending the careers of many silent film stars, and making it more difficult to market films abroad. Hollywood took some time to overcome the artistic and technical challenges Read more

The earliest American films, which appeared around 1895, were primarily a working-class pastime. Because they told stories without words, they appealed to the large, mostly illiterate immigrant population in the United States. After 1900, film became a more middle-class phenomenon, as filmmakers exploited film’s storytelling potential by adapting bourgeois novels (which Read more

Film theory is a collection of interpretative frameworks developed over time in order to understand better the way films are made and received. Film theory is not a self-contained field: it borrows from the disciplines of philosophy, art theory, social science, cultural theory, psychology, literary theory, linguistics, economics, and political Read more

The profit motive driving Hollywood studios leads producers to repeat, with some variation, formulas that prove financially successful. This practice has led to the establishment of familiar categories of films, known as genres, some of which are first developed in literature and then adapted for the screen. Some genres, like the Read more

Cinematography
Cinematography describes the process by which a film strip is exposed to light to create an image. It encompasses many factors: the camera’s distance from the action, camera angle and direction, type of lens, camera movement, and lighting, among others. The art of cinematography also includes mise-en-scène—the arrangement of objects and Read more

Cameras and photographs
Although old cameras seem worlds apart from today’s high-tech models, many still work and are bought to use. A camera’s age is not necessarily reflected in its value – the rarity and quality of a particular model are often far more important than when it was made.
Brass Read more

The First Telephone Call
March 10, 1876
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What were the first words ever spoken on the telephone? They were spoken by Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, when he made the first call on March 10, 1876, to his assistant, Thomas Watson: “Mr. Watson–come here–I want to see Read more